Inside Muzafer Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiments. The fascinating true story of one of the most controversial psychological experiments of the modern era. In 1954, a group of boys attended a remote summer camp where they were split into two groups, and forced to bully, harass, and demonise members of the other group. The results would make history as one of social psychology's classic studies: the Robbers Cave experiment. Conducted at the height of the Cold War, officially the experiment had a happy ending: the boys reconciled, and psychologist Muzafer Sherif demonstrated that while hatred and violence are powerful forces, so is cooperation and harmony.